


this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark

by connerluthorkent



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angry Kissing, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime Boss Oswald Cobblepot, Ed is horny as hell, Edward Nygma Has a Crush on Oswald Cobblepot, Edward Nygma is the Riddler, Fighting As Foreplay, First Kiss, Guns, M/M, Sexual Tension, Sort Of, What else is new
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28529025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connerluthorkent/pseuds/connerluthorkent
Summary: The Riddler, well on his way to criminal infamy, becomes a perpetual thorn in the side of Gotham City’s reigning kingpin—Oswald Cobblepot.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 42
Kudos: 61





	this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I bring to you the start of a brand new AU this fine Sunday morning. This one's been banging around in my head for...awhile, so I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> Credit for Ed's riddle goes to Miss_Vile. Thank you so much again! <3
> 
> Title taken from Bruce Springsteen's _Dancing in the Dark_.

He presses his gloved hands against the glass of the window, the cold from the dark winter scene outside seeping through the leather and into his skin. The city lights glitter up at him, the kingdom of Gotham a vision sprawled out before him from his point on high. His for the taking. If he wanted it. 

Which, incidentally, he _doesn’t_. He just wants to _play_ with it, toy with this tarnished shell of a city like a puppet on a string. The GCPD, the mobsters, the Gotham elite. All pieces on a board for the Riddler to push and pull as he pleases, the ultimate chessmaster. 

But the power of knowing it _could_ be his is still intoxicating, heady like the rush from a hit of Red Queen or the adrenaline spike of a heist gone right.

That’s the high he’s riding tonight. Pacing away from the window, Riddler feels a smirk begin to tug at his lips as he surveys his bounty. Stacks of crisp green bills are fanned out all over the luxurious plum of the Royal Hotel’s bedding, the contrast burning into his retinas. The image is so palpable, he still sees it on the back of his eyelids every time he blinks. 

With an elated giggle, he spins and swan dives backwards onto the mattress, silken fabric cool and smooth against the back of his neck, the distinctive smell of cold, hard cash wafting in the air around him. The Riddler sighs happily, dragging his limbs back and forth across the soft surface, like he’s making snow angels. There is nothing, _nothing_ quite so satisfying as a job well done. 

Just as he’s picking up a pile to fan his face, there’s a clatter in the hall, followed by a hard thump. Then, the door’s being kicked in, a harsh slam against the hotel room wall.

...except, perhaps, _that_. 

Riddler’s pulse quickens, his heart kicking up to double time as he lifts his head and catches a glimpse of flashing, pale eyes and an artful swoop of gelled black hair. The sound of a cane clicks out a steady, pumping rhythm across the floor, and a shadow falls across his face. 

And then he’s looming, luminous and larger-than-life, over Riddler, the cruel slash of his smile like a knife.

The _Penguin_.

The Riddler is on his feet in an instant, yanking the gun out of the back of his waistband and trying, valiantly, not to let the spike of exhilaration bloom across his face. 

He’s barely raised his weapon when he feels the steady, heavy press of a pistol just below his chin. Swinging out, he finds flesh with his own barrel, just above the Penguin’s heart. 

And there they are. A pair of burgeoning Gotham criminals intricately intertwined, locked in a stalemate. 

He gazes down at the pint-sized kingpin. The Penguin’s nasty grin has transformed into a feral grimace, showing off shimmering rows of sharp, white teeth. More piranha than penguin. 

“I have to admit,” Riddler starts, giving him a once over, “you’re much shorter than I thought you would be.” 

The words spill off his lips before he thinks better of it, his first half-formed thought falling instantly out of his mouth. He freezes, blinks, unsettled at his own bravado.

His mistake doesn’t pass without consequence, of course. Penguin digs the end of his pistol harder into the tender skin of his throat. The metal is cool, scraping against Riddler’s Adam’s apple as he swallows. 

“I hope you think that clever quip made for suitable last words,” Penguin hisses, his breath hot against Riddler’s chin, “because I’m about to end you where you _stand_.” 

Riddler gasps, placing a palm over his heart as if shocked. 

“Oh, but _whatever_ have I done to you, Mr. Penguin?”

“Do _not_ call me that!” Penguin snaps, eyes glinting dangerously. “And you know _exactly_ what I’m talking about!”

Riddler taps his chin, gun still trained steadily against the Penguin’s chest. He hums, as though deep in thought.

“I suppose you’ll just have to jog my memory,” he muses, shrugging casually as his grin turns sharp, “I’m drawing a _complete_ blank.” 

Penguin lets out a squawk of disbelief, face contorting with rage as he puffs up to his full height. He waves a frenetic hand at the king-size bed, wads of slightly crumpled bills now scattered haphazardly across it. 

“You are the miscreant who robbed the Camelot tonight!” he seethes, shifting to jab the gun into Riddler’s chest like an accusing finger. “And I would know, given your face is plastered _all over_ the security footage. Not to mention, you left your _calling card_ , the one you’ve been plastering all over the city.”

“So, you’ve heard of me?” Riddler preens, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

The Penguin rolls his eyes.

“I must say, for all you’re posturing with your ‘secret identity,’” he thumps his fingers against the outline of Riddler’s signature eye mask, “when it comes to stealth, you leave something to be desired.”

“But wait,” the Riddler counters, holding up a single finger, “I thought Cameron Kaiserran The Camelot?”

He settles back on his heels, shooting Penguin a coy, pleasant smile. 

“Kaiser is in _my_ pocket! Everyone who’s anyone in the Gotham underworld knows that!”

“Oh, so now I’m someone?” Riddler drawls, delighted. 

“You,” Penguin whispers through clamped teeth, dangerously low as he draws closer, like a snake about to strike, “are some _trumped up_ petty thief who’s about to learn his place!”

Riddler’s nostrils flare at being debased to the level of no-name lowlife. 

"I'm the Riddler!" he all but roars, letting his carefully crafted composure slip momentarily. 

Penguin’s expression turns pleased and predatory, scenting blood in the water. He throws back his head, revealing the delicate, pale line of his throat, and laughs, long and hard. 

“The _Riddler_?” Penguin spat the name like it tasted sour in his mouth, eyes shining with tears of mirth. “What kind of _ridiculous_ name is that?!”

Riddler bristles, his turn to press too close, cornering Penguin and backing him up against one of the bedposts. 

“No more absurd than _Penguin_!” he growls, cocking his pistol so that he’s tilting Penguin’s chin up to face him. “If I’m just some dressed up common criminal, then what does that make you?”

With a gun at his throat, Penguin looks more blasé than ever. 

“I,” he starts, voice slow, words dripping with honeyed poison, “am the goddamn _King_ of Gotham!” 

By the time he finishes, he’s snarling, all but spitting in Riddler’s face. 

“And you, my friend,” he continues, his body flush against Riddler’s, leaning forward as though _he’s_ the one with the height advantage, “are about to learn a very valuable lesson. What a shame that it’s going to be your last.”

“Oh?” Riddler’s lips twitch. “And what’s that?”

“That _no one_ gets away with stealing from me and _lives_!”

“That’s a shame,” Riddler murmurs, soft and sultry, near enough he can smell the Penguin’s pomade as his nose brushes against his hairline, “because there’s just _one_ more thing I’d like to steal from you.”

“Oh, I would loveto see you try!” Penguin scoffs with a dismissive roll of his eyes.

“I am a latch where the heart is the key,” Riddler recites, tracing a heart into the air with a single finger, “at the junction that seals me, one might hear a sweetly whispered plea. What am I?”

“Is that—a fucking _riddle_?!” Penguin splutters, sounding more affronted than he had at anyof the Riddler’s jibes up to that point.

Taking advantage of his disbelief, Riddler buries his free hand in the back of Penguin’s hair, yanks him forward, and kisses him _hard_. After a mere moment of frozen shock, Riddler feels the Penguin’s lips begin moving against his, brutal and bruising. A ragged sound, low and animalistic, rumbles in the back of Riddler’s throat as Penguin’s frame digs into his, sharp angles and steady heat. His body pulses as if he’s taken a physical shock, a current, thrumming and electric, running through him. 

The press of the Penguin’s mouth, the scent of his skin, the clash of his teeth is as heady and intoxicating as any heist, any hit. Riddler’s head swims with it, the knowledge that he’s disarmed _the_ gangster of Gotham. He feels every bit as powerful as if he ruled over the city himself. 

Then he feels Penguin’s sharp, gleaming teeth clamping down on his bottom lip, a bite hard enough to draw blood. Riddler releases him with a gasp, tasting that tell-tale metallic tang as he worries his tongue over the sore spot, licking up the drops.

The Penguin stares up at him, panting heavily, and Riddler’s own chest heaves in time. The mobster’s mouth is slack, eyes even wilder than before. 

“What the _fuck_ was that?!” he heaves.

Riddler grins triumphantly, leaning down so their faces are a hair’s breadth away.

“Lip,” he pops the word in his mouth, so close his own lips ghost over Penguin’s as he speaks, “ _lock_.”

 _Click_.

Penguin’s gaze drops in horror, falling to the set of handcuffs now chaining his wrist to the bedpost. His guard is down just long enough for Riddler to snatch the pistol from his hand, gently dropping the weapon to the floor and kicking it away to safety across the room.

The noise the Penguin lets out when he comprehends his circumstances can only be properly described as a roar.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" he screeches, limbs jerking erratically, his hand yanking uselessly against his constraints. 

Riddler takes a step back, surveying his work with a self-congratulatory smirk.

“You pose a lot of questions, but, since you asked so _nicely_ ,” he taps Penguin on the end of the nose, jerking back just before a jaw locks around his finger, “Knight. Checks. King.”

The sheer rage on Penguin's face at the quip makes goosebumps rise over Riddler’s skin. 

He's never seen anyone look so furious. Homicidal. _Radiant_.

“You are going to _pay for this_!” Penguin shrieks, lashing out towards him with the force of a storm. “When I’m finished with you, you will _wish_ you had simply let me shoot youwhen you had the chance! I will annihilateyou, take apart everything and everyone you have ever loved until all that’s left is scattered _pieces_!”

Riddler waves a dismissive hand.

“By the time you’re out of those cuffs, I’ll be long gone.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” Penguin sneers, the metal of the handcuff clanging loudly against the wood of the post. 

“You’ll dislocate your wrist,” Riddler warns, giving him a worried frown. 

He crosses to the other side of the bed, stoops, and pulls out a leather briefcase. Unlatching the clasps, he lifts one long arm and begins sweeping the money within reach inside. 

“As for coming after me,” he chuckles to himself. “I hope that you do. I’m _so_ looking forward to the chase.”

He lets the leather lid fall shut with a resounding slam, ignoring the colorful expletives and detailed death threats now pouring from the kingpin’s mouth. 

Riddler comes around so that they’re facing each other again, clasping his hands in front of him politely as he listens to Penguin’s escalating tirade. 

“I will rip out your heart and _eat it_!” 

Riddler only blinks patiently in acknowledgment, waiting for him to finish before he speaks again. 

“Oh by the way,” he taps his temple, as though the thought had just occurred to him, “I might have tripped the hotel’s silent alarm before you arrived.”

Penguin rears back as though he’s been slapped, his eyes screwing tightly shut. He raises his unshackled hand, pinching his fingers together. An unpleasant faux smile curls at the edges of his mouth.

“Excuse me?” he replies, voice dangerously soft. 

“The GCPD should be arriving in,” Riddler glances down at his wristwatch, “eta two minutes or so. So I suggest you don’t delay.” 

He tosses Penguin the slim, silver key to the cuffs, watching him grapple desperately for it. Though his movements are fumbling, he finally manages to close his fist around the cool metal, securing the mechanism for his release in his free hand. 

“For now, I’m afraid, I must bid you adieu,” the Riddler offers, tipping his hat with a flourish. “I’ll be seeing you...Mr. Penguin.”

With that, he blows him one final, cheeky kiss. 

The gangster splutters in outrage, face turning an angry, beet red. 

Before he has a chance to start in on his second round of abuse, Riddler is out the door.

The scream Penguin releases, as the latch clicks shut behind him, is positively guttural, a bloodcurdling sound of animalistic rage. The sort of noise that would make a sensible man’s blood run cold. 

As the Riddler disappears into the shadows of the dark Gotham night, he smiles. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, any and all kudos, keyboard smashing, and general flailing is encouraged and cherished! <3 I'm always excited to hear y'all's thoughts.


End file.
